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In the early 1970s, the French state power company, EDF decided to establish a production's nuclear power plant in Brittany. At first, they tried to establish it in Erdeven, Morbihan. But shield walls fastly rose up. EDF then proposed to establish the project in Ploumoguer, Finistère, just north of Brest. Rightist Elected councilmen around Brest were agree for such a power plant, but not so near of Brest. So, in a treachery's manner, they decided to focus on Plogoff. A village which was mostly populated by old people - unable, for French authorities to protest like in the 2 previous project's places -. But, when Plogoff was proposed by EDF, as a site for a nuclear power plant. Local residents blocked access to the site in 1976, with renewed protests in 1978 and 1979.

In 1980, the national government and EDF attempted to fulfill their statutory obligations to allow the project to proceed by displaying the public utility inquiry documents in the local mairie or city hall. Local officials burned the documents and refused to allow replacement documents to be displayed. In response, the national government set up mobile mairies annexes to display the documents in town centers. These mairies annexes became the focus of the protest movement. For 45 days, the riot police (CRS), the military police (gendarmerie) and some parachutists (EPIGN) guarded the mairies annexes while coming under attack from the protesters.

Once the obligation to display the documents had been met and the documents were withdrawn, the protesters occupied the proposed site of the facility.